Neighboring countries and territories:
The countries and territories neighboring each country. "L" means they share only a land border and "M" means they have only maritime boundaries. A blank means they share both.

Number of maritime boundary neighbours:
Number of states and territories with which each country shares a maritime border. Two countries separated from each other by a body of water have a maritime border with each other.

Overview:
A geopolitical overview of every sovereign country in the world, briefly examining their recent history and place on the global stage. The texts are taken from the BBC News website.

Macedonia was spared the inter-ethnic violence that raged elsewhere in the Balkans following the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s but it came close to civil war a decade after independence.

Rebels staged an uprising in early 2001, demanding greater rights for the ethnic Albanian minority. The conflict created a wave of refugees and the rebels made territorial gains.

After months of skirmishes, EU and Nato support enabled the president, Boris Trajkovski, to strike a peace deal. Under the Ohrid agreement, Albanian fighters laid down their arms in return for greater ethnic-Albanian recognition within a unitary state.